Perspective
by over-rehearsed
Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle was many different things to many different people. Maybe it all depended on perspective. Or, Voldemort in seven ways.


**This was originally posted on The Bellatrix Lestrange Forum account for a challenge, but it's now being posted on my profile!**

**This was originally written for: SurroundedInDarkness, using the prompts:**

**1. "Darkness. When everything you know and love is taken from you so harshly. All you can think about is anger, hatred, and even revenge. And no one can save you."-Orochimaru (Naruto)**

**(You can use this as inspiration, although it would be interesting to see it incorporated into the fic)**

**2. eccedentesiast (use this in the story)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter! :)**

* * *

**Perspective**

i.

If Amy Benson had to describe Tom Riddle in one word it would be 'charming.' If she had another, it would be 'dangerous.' Maybe it would be just because her parents had been so themselves when they took her to the orphanage and abandoned her there, but Amy was always wary of charming people.

He scared her a little, so she observed him. She observed everyone, almost as much as he fooled everyone.

The first thing she noticed aside from his being charming was that he was cruel, intentionally so. He would go out of his way to make everyone around him miserable. But the adults, if not some of the children as well, were too blind to see his intentions. He'd give them a charming, innocent smile and they would fall under his spell.

One day, though, when he was making fun of her best and only friend, Dennis Bishop, she'd had enough of just standing on the sidelines. "Leave him alone!" she snapped, and his already large and amused grin got impossibly wider.

"You two are an interesting pair," he drawled, taking them in. "Probably the only interesting people at this place, aside from me. I'm sorry for making fun of you, Dennis. You two want to come with me to a special place of mine when everyone else goes to the village tomorrow?"

If Amy had been a bit more observant that day, she might have noticed the cruel glint to his eyes, or the way he sneered as if they were just too easy to fool. But she did not, so the next day the three of them went on an adventure.

The cave was borderline impossible to get up to, and worth it it wasn't. It was dark, gloomy, and wet, and Amy longed for the village by the sea. But she wasn't about to say so, it would be rude.

"What do you even do here?" she asked Tom Riddle brightly. _That_ was when she noticed the cruel, predatory glint in his eyes, and _that_ was when she realized that there was nowhere to run.

She screamed as he tortured her best friend and screamed even louder as he tortured her. She would never be the same.

ii.

A good while after class ended and Horace Slughorn left the dungeons for his office, he sensed someone walking in hesitantly. Sensed wasn't an accurate word, more like he noticed in his peripheral vision that a student was coming in; he relaxed when he noticed it was only Tom Riddle, a student of his and a particularly talented one at that.

Contrary to a few beliefs spread around, Slughorn wasn't a fool. He'd heard tell of the rumours going around, how Tom Riddle was a bully and was gaining support for some evil scheme he had planned for after Hogwarts or another. But that didn't sound like Tom Riddle at all, he was charming, generous even. He always gave him a healthy supply of crystallized pineapples and, despite all of Albus's warnings that he'd had a hard past and not to trust him (hinted subtly, of course, never outright), Tom Riddle had always looked to him with a certain amount of respect that one couldn't quite fake, no matter how good of an actor.

No, Slughorn thought, Tom Riddle was a good boy.

"Sir," the boy spoke hesitantly from the doorway, and Slughorn was quick to beckon him in. He had with him—again—a package of crystallized pineapples which he held out as an offering.

"Hello, my dear boy," Slughorn said, accepting the crystallized pineapples graciously, he thought. "Is there something I can help you with today?"

"Actually, yes," Tom said hesitantly, yet again. "Professor, I only ask you this because you are the best professor and the only one I trust to discuss this with, but I came across something in a book whilst doing my studies that I hadn't come across before, but couldn't find anything on it anywhere else. And, well, coming to you was my first thought."

He was laying the charm on thick, and Slughorn beamed at his words. "What is it?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, I was wondering if you could tell me what a Horcrux is?"

Slughorn froze, because whatever he had been thinking Tom was alluding to, this was not it. All of a sudden alarm bells were ringing in his head, that he shouldn't tell him the answer, that maybe Dumbledore was right, that this could not possibly be an innocent question. But he took a breath; in, out, and turned back to his prodigal student.

"This is for your studies, you say?" He asked, just to be sure. Tom Riddle rushed to reassure him.

So then, against his better judgment, he told him the answer to his question; a decision he regretted almost the moment he made it, despite his attempts to tell himself that Tom Marvolo Riddle couldn't possibly be lying.

Tom Riddle was charming, deceitful, dangerous, ruthless, and sooner rather than later he became practically indestructible, and despite the fact that they both knew he'd have found out about it one way or another, Horace Slughorn never stopped blaming himself.

iii.

Caractacus Burke smiled dimly to himself as he closed shop. He'd made a small fortune on a poisoned candle that day, and was pleased with himself for his wise investing. He didn't know what the middle-aged lady who bought the candle was planning on doing with it, nor did he much care.

Sometimes, things happened, and all you could think about was anger, hatred, and even (especially) revenge, and no one could save you. It was being surrounded by darkness, with no escape. It was what he thrived on and made money off of, buying dark artifacts cheap and selling expensively, because there was no price on darkness, on revenge.

It was as he mused over this, a small smirk crawling across his face, that the bell rang, signaling that someone had entered his now-closed shop.

"We're closed," he called, not looking up from where he was busy dusting off an opal necklace that hung on display. He heard footsteps approaching and sighed inwardly, another difficult customer.

"I'm not here to buy," the man—no, _boy_—said. He looked like he was fresh out of Hogwarts, if even that. Caractacus felt his interest and curiosity peak against his will. "I'm not here to sell, either. I come with a proposition."

Caractacus took the time to study him. He looked to be 17 or 18, fresh out of Hogwarts with handsome features and burning red eyes that had him looking to be sculpted by the devil himself. "And what's that?" he asked roughly.

"I'd like to work here, I have an interest in dark and dangerous artifacts, and I think you'll find me very… persuasive." He handed him the sign that Mr. Borgin had put out front, the delicate red letters that said NOW HIRING.

He took another good look at the boy, noticing the smooth, sincere glint of his eyes as he spoke, but also the gleam in his eyes that said he wouldn't take no for an answer.

He never found out that he was hiring the future Lord Voldemort, or else he might have asked for something of his to sell for a profit later, but as it was, he couldn't hide his pleased feeling as he felt that this was a boy that would be perfect for the job.

"You're hired."

iv.

Ginny whimpered as she came to and found herself in a dark chamber. It was damp, it smelled awful, the statue of a snake was terrifying, and there was no one, nothing, around. Except for the diary.

It seemed to follow her around everywhere this year. It had started off innocently enough, she'd found it in her cauldron when she arrived home from Diagon Alley. She meant to tell her mum, have them head back and return it, when something stopped her short. It was a diary, and a used one at that. Curiosity got the better of her, so she'd looked in, only to find it was blank.

Shrugging her shoulders, she'd determined that she'd keep it for herself. It was dated way back to the 1950s, so likely they wouldn't miss it. And besides, her family had never had enough money to get her one, and she had plenty to write about now that _the_ Harry Potter was staying at her house (swoon), not that he'd ever notice her anyway.

When she went to write in it, however, she came across a shock. Her bright purple ink had been absorbed into the book. She wrote in it anyway (stupidly, she chided herself now. It was all a mistake. A big, possibly life-altering mistake.) and was surprised when it wrote back.

At first it was a blessing, a friend in her pocket, someone to share the dramas and heartbreak and disappointment she went through on a daily basis. Then, it became a nightmare. She started blanking out and forgetting what all she'd done for hours at a time, which later turned into days. She'd find herself covered with blood and waking up in suspicious places. She didn't know what was happening, but she thought, maybe if she just got rid of the diary, it'd stop. It worked until she saw Harry Potter, the one person she would never allow to find out all of her secrets, with it. So she stole it back.

Days later, and she woke up in this dark, cold, empty chamber. Surely there was some correlation there.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't miss Ginevra Weasley," came a cold voice from across the room. She looked, and slowly appearing before her was a (quite handsome) boy with a Slytherin tie several years her senior. Except Hogwarts wasn't a big school, and she was quite certain that if someone that looked like him had existed, even in Slytherin House several years above her, she'd have noticed.

"Who are you?" she asked timidly.

"You mean you don't recognise me?" he asked, smirking. She shook her head frantically. "Maybe this will jog your memory: _Oh Tom, I'm so glad I found your diary, I don't know what I'd have done without you by my side this year."_ He even dramatically put his hand on his forehead as if about to faint as he spoke in a high-pitched, poorly done imitation of herself.

"Tom Riddle?" she breathed, shock seeping into her. But he was at least 50 years old, wasn't he?

"That's right," he sneered. "Caught on, have you?" She shook her head frantically, because this cold, awful boy couldn't possibly be the boy she'd confided the deepest secrets of hers to, because she had to be dreaming, because this couldn't be real, and maybe if she shook her head hard enough she'd find out that it wasn't. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. "Welcome to the Chamber of Secrets, I hope you like it. You'll be staying here for oh, _forever. _You're quite instrumental in my plan, you know."

That was when she felt herself dizzying, falling, fading away.

v.

"Oh dear me, wherever has my wand gone?" Bertha Jorkins asked out loud to herself, ruffling through her things in search of the wooden stick that allowed her to use magic. It also was the only way to apparate, having one's wand, and she was going on a trip today. But… where to? She looked over at a paper on her desk that said in large, capital letters ALBANIA. That was right, she chided herself, she was taking a personal vacation to Albania that day. Her boss at the pub she worked for had told her kindly, but sternly that if she didn't take a few personal days off to recollect herself, he'd have to make certain that she did, namely by firing her, and that wasn't something she wanted to risk. So it was off to Albania for her.

She hadn't always been this forgetful. In fact, she used to be quite nosy. She knew this in much the same way that she knew her name was Bertha Jorkins: the fact sheet that some old friends, family, and acquaintances had made for her. A few weeks prior she was found wandering an alley near a neighbourhood of wizarding houses aimlessly, without a clue as to why she was there, or even who she was. She had been escorted to St. Mungo's immediately for an examination, and they'd determined she was the product of a memory charm gone wrong.

Since then, she'd gotten most of her memories back, but she was so forgetful that she would sometimes forget what she was doing from one second to the next, or perhaps read and reread the same line as many as 20 times in a row.

So she was taking a holiday to Albania to collect herself and pull herself back together or she'd be fired, and that was that.

She found her wand on her bed shortly after and was off to the Centre for Long Distance Apparition and, before long, she found herself wandering about the streets in Tirana that bordered the forest, not quite knowing what to do.

So she popped into a pub, because _Merlin_ she needed a drink.

It was before long that a rat-like face that looked familiar appeared before her. "Bertha Jorkins?" the man asked, barely suppressing his glee and attempting to look astonished at seeing her there. Clearly he failed miserably, as she managed to take note of all of this. "What brings you to Albania?"

"I needed some me-time," she answered solemnly, just before finally placing him in her head. Peter Pettigrew, but he couldn't be… except he was. "I've been quite forgetful lately and have been informed that it's just not me. Mind, I'm not forgetful enough to forget that you're supposed to be dead…" she trailed off suspiciously.

"Let's go for a walk, there's a lovely view of the woods out this way, we can catch up," he suggested shortly, and after debating with herself for awhile, her nosiness came out. If he was supposed to be dead, why was he in Albania? She was determined to solve this mystery.

It was a mistake, though. The last mistake she'd ever be able to make. She figured this out as he led her very deliberately into the woods and evaded answering all of her questions. She tried to turn around, but that was when he pulled out his wand, and when she tried to pull out her own to even the odds a bit, that was when she realised that she'd left it on the counter in the pub. Oh…

"Bertha Jorkins," the boy said, this time not disguising his glee. "Meet the Dark Lord, my master."

His face was the last she'd see, she knew. And it wasn't even really a face. He was a… a nothing. She didn't quite know how to describe him. He was wearing a hood, but his red, snakelike eyes were noticeable. It hit her all of a sudden, like a bag of bricks falling on her: the fear. Unless, maybe if she gave them information, whatever they wanted, maybe then they'd leave her alive?

The words Crucio came out not of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's mouth, but Peter Pettigrew's. The shy boy with the rat-like features that she'd always seen tagging along behind the likes of James Potter and Sirius Black back at Hogwarts. He was torturing her. It hurt like nothing she'd ever experienced before, and suddenly she remembered everything.

She told them it all too, answering their questions between screams, hoping, praying that the pain would just end soon, that she'd get a chance to escape this. But she never did, because when it finally stopped, and she asked, timidly, to leave, Lord Voldemort's slit-like eyes found hers, and he laughed as a green light came for her.

But it was preferable to the pain.

vi.

Draco Malfoy could do arrogance. He could do smirks and walking around like he owned the place. He could act confident in front of people like Potter, Weasley, and Granger, even his fellow Slytherins. Because they didn't _matter_, when it came down to it. Not like this did.

He was walking in to meet the Dark Lord and he was very, very nervous.

Even his mother's presence, her tight clutch on his left elbow, did nothing to ease his nerves. He clenched his fists, unclenched them, sucked in a deep breath, knelt before the Dark Lord and said in the most confident tone he could muster under the circumstances (which wasn't much of one, if he was honest): "You wished to see me, my Lord?"

"Mr. Malfoy, I've been thinking, and it's high time I took a leap of faith on you, wouldn't you agree?" Draco didn't agree, it was one thing to preach his ways at Hogwarts, where he knew he was relatively safe— even if Dumbledore was a fool, he was certain to maintain the safety of students, after all. It was an entirely different boat to get the mark (which is what Draco was assuming he would have him do) and take on a mission. He said it like it was a choice, which it technically was, but it wasn't really a choice, see. Because to disagree with him was to sign his own, his family's own, death sentence.

"I agree," he said, surprised at the calmness and acceptance his own voice held, while inside he was a raging sea.

"I have a mission for you," Lord Voldemort (Draco cringed away as he even thought the name) said, "and to fail on your mission is to die. For surely if I weren't to kill you for it, someone else would. And I might just let them, after all, we all know I'm a merciful Lord." Draco's pale skin had likely given away his fear by becoming even paler at those words, for while he was accustomed to the looming threat of a possible death, he was unaccustomed to _death threats_.

But while he was scared out of his mind, all he could say was "yes, m'lord?" and fake a pleased smile on his face, as if he were happy that he was being trusted and given a mission at such a young age, as opposed to being scared shitless.

His mother's hand was gripping his arm even tighter now, like a vice. But he attempted to maintain his composure, still smiling. He was an excellent eccedentesiast, he hid behind his smiles and smirks and obedience, while inside he was terrified.

"You are going to kill Albus Dumbledore," the malice in his voice was obvious. The Dark Lord didn't think Draco could do it, it was punishment for his father's fucking up in the Ministry the month before. As Lucius was in prison at the moment, the punishment went from father to son.

Draco Malfoy was a dead man. And as Lord Voldemort's last word echoed in the room followed by his high-pitched and cruel laughter, he knew that everyone else in the room knew it, too.

vii.

Death had happened all around her before, but somehow Bellatrix Lestrange had always felt untouched by it. She'd been surrounded by it since she joined the ranks of the Death Eaters, and yet never felt like it could possibly happen to her. Perhaps that was why it hadn't thus far.

It had been following her around with a cloak and dagger for all of these years, waiting to strike. But it wasn't until this battle at Hogwarts had arrived that she even thought of it at all. The reality of the situation had hit her with not so much a bang, but a whimper.

She glanced to the side (a distraction that nearly caused a curse to hit her, but didn't) and was pleased to note that her Lord, her love, was still at her side, fighting for his cause, always fighting. She laughed maniacally as she aimed another curse at some unsuspecting good guy that thought they actually had a chance at winning this war. They didn't.

She sent a hasty, unspoken shield charm to protect the Dark Lord from a spell that might impair him. He didn't thank her, didn't glance her way or imply it, even. She didn't need him to; in fact, she might just die of shock if he did. They were like kin, in a way. Two people so alike that she had always felt a sort of magnetic pull to him. She didn't trust anyone as much as she trusted him: surely not her husband Rodolphus that her parents had matched her with, with his long line of unhidden affairs, nor Narcissa, her sister who cared much more for her husband and son than for the cause.

No, her Lord was the only one she could trust, the only one who she knew without a sliver of doubt would die for this cause just as assuredly as she, herself, would. And if she had enough of a heart to give to someone, it would be him who had all of it, all of her.

He was cruel, he didn't like to be kept waiting, he tortured for pleasure, and he hated people with an amount only rivaled by her own hatred, though his surpassed even hers, she suspected. And thus, she was drawn in like a moth to a flame of hatred. He believed in his own ideals so firmly that he was willing to—and did—kill, torture, and corrupt without shame and without regret. And in some strange way, clouded in all of his deceit, he was one of the very few truly honest people to exist in this world.

She would die for him in a heartbeat.

And when Molly Weasley shrieked at her and started fighting her in such a way Bellatrix had never thought her capable of, she did.


End file.
